Microsoft Bans Employees From Using ‘Chinese Propaganda’ Chatbot
Microsoft has banned employees from using DeepSeek — the viral Chinese chatbot it worries is a purveyor of “propaganda” — company President Brad Smith told senators Thursday.
He testified that the app is blocked across all Microsoft devices and stripped from the Windows Store because engineers fear it funnels employee data to Chinese servers and pushes CCP-friendly answers. Smith’s disclosure to the Senate Commerce Committee vaults Microsoft to the front of a widening effort to keep DeepSeek off American — especially government and corporate — devices.
“At Microsoft we don’t allow our employees to use the DeepSeek app,” Smith testified, warning of “data going back to China” and answers shaded by “Chinese propaganda.”
Smith said engineers dissected DeepSeek’s open-source R1 model after it went viral in January and “changed the code … to remove the harmful side effects” after putting it through stress tests designed to catch security gaps and weed out propaganda before listing it on Azure’s cloud marketplace. DeepSeek did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The hearing underscored Washington’s growing unease over Beijing-linked AI tools that operate beyond U.S. export controls yet harvest American data. DeepSeek rocketed to the top of Apple’s and Google’s app charts this winter by offering ChatGPT Plus-level performance for free. At the same time, DeepSeek admits it “directly collects, processes and stores your Personal Data in the People’s Republic of China.” (Read more from “Microsoft Bans Employees From Using ‘Chinese Propaganda’ Chatbot” HERE)
